Mamata meeting PM 'desperate attempt' to split anti-TMC votes: BJP

January 13, 2020 14:04

West Bengal Bharatiya Jnaata Party on Monday termed chief minister Mamata Banerjee's recent meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit to the city and her decision to "back out" of the opposition meeting in New Delhi as "desperate attempts" to divide anti-Trinamool Congress votes in the state.

According to senior state BJP leaders, Banerjee giving the opposition meeting convened by interim Congress president Sonia Gandhi in New Delhi a miss was a "well-calculated move to give oxygen to the Congress and Communist Party of India-Marxist in Bengal, which are on their political death beds".

"She (Banerjee) deliberately wants to send out a message that something is cooking between the BJP and the TMC. In 2019 Lok Sabha polls, we emerged as the main opposition in West Bengal.

"Now, this is being done in a desperate attempt to split anti-TMC votes between us, the CPI-M and Congress," a state BJP leader said.

He said this "trick" has, however, been exposed and will not yield any result as "people of the state have already decided to oust the TMC government in 2021 and bring the BJP to power in the state".

The BJP had secured 18 of the 42 seats in West Bengal in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, just four less than the ruling TMC.

The BJP had bagged 41 per cent of the polled votes while the TMC clinched 43 per cent, relegating the Congress and the Left to the third and fourth positions respectively.

"As the Congress and the Left had failed to hold on to their respective electors base, many of whom voted for the BJP in the Lok Sabha polls, Banerjee is trying to project these two parties as the main opposition instead of the saffron party," another senior BJP leader said.

The state BJP's views come after the chief minister met the prime minister and they shared the dais at a state government event. -- PTI

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